Month: November 2010

In late October, Norris met with the director of the Department of Environmental Quality, though he did not disclose it to fellow elected officials. “I really firmly believe it’s the obligation of elected officials who are looking out for the best interests of their costituents to ask hard questions, to go to the source, to find accurate information,” he says.

Fellow government officials seem to think that Norris’ meeting fell outside the planned course of action agreed to at a recent meeting with the four boards that will decide the future of the area’s water supply. 

Norris says the matter is a “manufactured controversy.” 

On September 21, those four bodies,—the Charlottesville City Council, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors, the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority (RWSA) and the Albemarle County Service Authority (ACSA)—met to discuss modifications to the 2006 water plan set forth by City Council. Ultimately, the four boards hoped to agree again on a plan. Although resolution was not achieved, the bodies agreed to contact DEQ in the form of a letter. The letter would lay out the outstanding questions each board had. 

Many people were surprised to learn on November 5, during a meeting between the Board of Supervisors and the ACSA, that Norris had met separately with DEQ in Richmond on October 22. They were surprised because they had not heard about the Richmond trip from Norris himself, and they were surprised by the individuals who traveled with him. 

Charlottesville Tomorrow first broke the story of Norris’ DEQ meeting on November 6. Norris insisted that his meeting was not a lobbying effort. “This [meeting] had nothing to do with lobbying about one plan or another,” he tells C-VILLE. “What came out of that meeting was a very clear message, which is that anybody locally who uses DEQ as a boogeyman to try to scare people away from asking a hard question about this plan or working to improve the plan, anybody who points to DEQ and says ‘DEQ will never allow that’ is not representing the situation accurately. And that’s an important outcome of the discussion that I had and I’m very glad that I had a chance to hear that directly from DEQ.”

Although Norris did not disclose his meeting to either the RWSA or his fellow councilors prior to going to Richmond, he did send an e-mail after the November 5 meeting to councilors and supervisors about “the rumor going around that I have been inappropriately lobbying DEQ about out community water supply plan. This is categorically false,” he wrote. Charlottesville Tomorrow’s Brian Wheeler, who broke the story, was copied on the e-mail. But Tom Frederick, executive director of RWSA, knew about the DEQ trip before November 5. 

“I received a call from the Department of Environmental Quality on October 26 that just simply stated that as a courtesy they wanted to let me know that Mr. Paylor had met with Mayor Norris,” he told C-VILLE. 

In the Charlottesville Tomorrow piece, fellow councilor David Brown had harsh words for the mayor: “I am discouraged because [the water supply] is an issue council agreed to work hard together on.”

Norris stands by his assertion that he was not lobbying. He tells C-VILLE that most of the people who are opposed to the city’s efforts to improve the plan are those who are representing of what DEQ can or will allow.

“I don’t have a history with DEQ like they do, so I don’t know if they’re telling the truth or not. When I had the opportunity to meet with DEQ to find out for myself what DEQ is and what they’re all about, I jumped at the chance,” he says.  

Norris was accompanied to Richmond by Richard Lloyd and Keith Rosenfeld. Both live in the county and have watched the water supply plan debate very closely for years. Although both are members of Citizens for a Sustainable Water Plan, a small but vocal advocacy group opposed to the 2006 water plan, they say the meeting was organized without the help or knowledge of the larger group. 

“The Citizens for Sustainable Water had nothing to do with this,” says Lloyd. “We didn’t want to taint it by either side. We went down with clean hands.” Rosenfeld agrees. 

“Our belief was purely that Dave Norris is the head of the city, the one person who has probably gotten one of the better commands of the facts of this in the entire process, and that he needed to go and hear directly from David Paylor personally and DEQ directly,” he says. “We just want to get the key players to go talk directly to the people involved in the DEQ and find out what the truth is and that is the only reason we went.”

He adds that neither the proposed pipeline nor the dam, two components of the 2006 plan, were discussed. 

“They both entered the room with nothing in their hands. They sat down, they talked, took no notes, and they had a delightful conversation on both sides,” says Lloyd. 

Norris says “the only regret I have was that my fellow councilors found out about this discussion from a phone call from a reporter.” 

Not everyone was satisfied by the e-mail Norris sent on November 5. 

“His email fell way short of the information that subsequently came out in the Daily Progress,” Supervisor Dennis Rooker says. “His e-mail almost made him sound like he went to breakfast and saw this guy and it comes out the next day that he was driven to the meeting by two people who have been lobbying to undermine the water plan for several years. I don’t think he was very forthcoming in that e-mail.” 

Even the Daily Progress weighed in on the controversy with a harsh editorial published on November 10 that called out Norris for taking the meeting. “There was very little in that editorial that was correct,” says Norris. “What’s happening here is that they are trying to kill the messenger because they don’t like the message.”

Norris says that local groups like the Nature Conservancy, RWSA and ACSA have a close relationship with DEQ. “Those groups are also all firmly opposed to improvements in the 2006 plan that will give us long-term water security at lower cost and with less environmental impact,” Norris says in an e-mail. “In light of this fact, Richard and Keith invited me to accompany them to meet Mr. Paylor so I could hear for myself, from the director of the agency, what DEQ is all about. Just as I was happy to meet with some lower-level DEQ staff last summer with [former Supervisor] David Slutzky (a strong supporter of the 2006 plan), I was happy to go down this time with Richard and Keith.” The truth, says Norris, is that DEQ “wants to see the city and the county to come to a resolution amongst ourselves. They’d love nothing more than to see us work this out.”

Ultimately, will the water discussion be muddied by the Norris meeting controversy? Gary O’Connell, ACSA director and former city manager, doesn’t think so. (And neither do Frederick and Norris.)

“I am still optimistic [about a resolution], maybe this could be a New Year’s gift to the community,” O’Connell says.

This time, the owner of the Landmark Hotel on the Downtown Mall owes the City of Charlottesville $62,766.62 in overdue taxes. 

Halsey Minor owes the City of Charlottesville more than $62,000 in overdue taxes. The city has a 10 percent penalty for paying after the due date and 10 percent interest annually. Minor says that paying back that amount may depend on the resolution of the bankruptcy trail.

But he is not alone. As of June 1, more than $1 million in delinquent taxes, real estate, personal property among others, are owed to the city, about three-quarters of 1 percent of the overall operating budget of $140.7 million. 

It’s not the first time Minor is listed as a delinquent taxpayer. Minor also owes back taxes to the State of California. As of November 9, Minor still topped the list of Top 250 Delinquent Taxpayers in California, and owes the state more than $13 million in personal income tax. California put a tax lien on Minor in July 2009. Minor has been delinquent to the City of Charlottesville since June 7, 2009. 

The money owed to the city is “part of the bankruptcy and litigation,” Minor said via email. Asked about plans to repay, Minor says that “totally depends on where the litigation goes and where the bankruptcy goes.”

In September, Minor filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in federal court in Lynchburg. Chapter 11 is referred to as a “reorganization” bankruptcy, where the debtor can voluntarily file a petition and write a reorganization plan detailing how the creditors will be paid over time. The filing was meant to expedite the resolution of the multiple lawsuits involving the Landmark Hotel, which, according to a September press release announcing the filing, amount to eight between Georgia and Virginia. 

At the same time Minor sued Specialty Finance Group (SFG), the financing company that originally gave Minor $23.6 million to build the hotel, in Virginia court, SFG sued him in Georgia. SFG was a subsidiary of Silverton Bank, based in Atlanta, which failed in May of last year and was taken over by the FDIC.

“Because we had already gone through one arbitration that was very costly against Lee Danielson’s company, Hotel Charlottesville, we really didn’t want to go through multiple trials,” says Betty Shumener, Minor’s lead attorney. “Seeing how expensive it is to go to trial, we thought, ‘We need to bring everything in one place’ and most of the witnesses are in Virginia, the project is in Virginia, the parties are in Virginia.” 

In July, the result of the arbitration between Minor and former hotel developer Danielson favored the owner. Danielson’s Hotel Charlottesville LLC was ordered to pay $4.2 million in damages and $2.2 million in legal fees for misrepresenting the costs of the construction of the hotel. 

But the road to resolution has hit a few bumps. Just a few days after the bankruptcy filing, a federal judge in Georgia ordered the case sent to the Virginia bankruptcy court. The Virginia court then decided to remand the trial back to Georgia.

“We have appealed that decision to the Virginia District Court and hopefully we will reverse that decision so that we can go to a speedy trial in Virginia,” says Shumener. 

In the mean time, the Georgia Court has already scheduled the trial for March 14, 2011. “We don’t mind the trial date, we don’t mind when it goes to trial, we just want one trial,” says Shumener.

There’s a great scene in David Mamet’s underrated 2000 comedy State and Main in which Alec Baldwin —playing a vain, alcoholic movie star with a penchant for teenage girls (gee, typecast much?)—emerges largely unscathed from a spectacular car wreck. Surveying the scene with a bemused look on his face, he smiles dazedly and deadpans, “So, that happened.”

Bret Aker, left, and his brother John, hope Charlottesville will become “the next major hub” for engineers who want to develop EV technology.

“We’re hoping to become the next major hub for engineers who want to develop electric vehicle technology,” says John Aker, president and chief technology officer for Aker Wade, whose company is set to work with the city on the project. The Aker Wade facility is a stone’s throw from the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport north of town.

The project was approved through a Congressional Directed Project, with the Department of Energy supplying the large portion of the grant and the City of Charlottesville contributing another $134,000. “It’s nice to have the earmark from the city and the federal government,” says Aker, “but it’s a very small portion of what we are actually investing in the project,” which he suggests will be in the millions, all said and done.

“I was surprised when the grant was approved,” admits Kristel Riddervold, the city’s environmental administrator from the public works office. “Congressman Perriello convened a meeting about 18 months ago as an open call for business opportunities in the Fifth District. Now that we have the grant, we have one year to fulfill the research, which is basically to investigate the applicability of zero-emissions technology within smaller urban areas.” The city will also purchase four plug-in vehicles for the research in addition to the charging stations. Unfortunately, neither the vehicles nor the charging stations will be available for public use at this stage. “The dispensers will look something like a regular gas station pump with two outlets,” says Aker. “The driver will be able to pull up, plug in and be re-charged in a half-hour.”

“What we’re creating here is meant to be self-serve,” says John Aker.

How serious is the city about the future of EV technology? As recently as October 18, City Council met to discuss permits for home installation EV chargers, predicting that as electric vehicles become more common, an increase in requests for chargers at one- and two-family residential units is to be expected. In an effort to encourage citizens to purchase these vehicles, councilors have suggested a simple low-cost permit fee of $50. 

Aker Wade, whose company tagline is “The World’s #1 Industrial Fast Charge Manufacturer,” has been in the technology business since 2000. “We started out creating fast charge for industrial equipment,” says Bret Aker, John’s brother and Aker Wade’s co-founder and CEO. “The forklift has been battery-run since, what, the 1920s? What we’ve managed to do for that industry is create fast charge technology that allows the batteries to be re-powered while the operator is taking a lunch break.” 

Aker Wade moved into EV technology, says Bret Aker, because “in the ’90s, the state of California had an electric vehicle initiative that said by 2004 10 percent of all on-road vehicles were going to be electric. Well, they were a bit too aggressive with those goals, but what happened was they created all these cottage industries. And one of those was these charging stations. We came in right about the time that they were beginning to say, ‘You know what? This isn’t ready for the EV market, but the technology works perfectly with things like forklift equipment.’ GM, in particular, felt that it was something that could ultimately save them millions of dollars, and GM was our first major contract, catapulting us into this business where we have now delivered over 10,000 fast chargers all built right here in Charlottesville.”

Inside their mid-sized hangar warehouse, the Aker Wade operation maintains a solid industrial equipment business, which is how it funds its venture into EV technology. The prototype for the EV fast charge station sits in the south end corner. From a distance, it looks much like a regular gas station consol, even boasting a typical-looking pump handle to plug into the vehicle. But upon closer inspection, two of Aker Wade’s technicians open the structure to reveal what looks like a large computer inside. 

“That’s basically what it is,” confirms John Aker. “What we’re creating here is meant to be self-serve. We envision these in more modern places, very much the gas station model. You couldn’t have this in your home; you couldn’t afford it. You wouldn’t have the power and the structure to support it. It takes over 50 kilowatts to run it. So it’s a big powerful machine.” 

Financially speaking, the Aker brothers have put their entire business on the line to do this. “There’s no turning back at this point,” says Bret. “Now that we’re coming into the EV market, we’re really starting our base from lessons learned with our forklift technology.” 

Any discussion of the electric vehicle and GM demands a look back at the automaker’s first attempt to manufacture and market these cars during the mid-to-late ’90s.

There’s that pivotal scene in the 2006 documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? when GM spiritlessly crushed and stacked thousands of EV1s like a cord of firewood, then shredded them into a million pieces. The film portrays GM, which spent more than $1 billion in development of the electric car, as ultimately choosing to focus on the vehicle’s few weaknesses, while in collusion with the oil industry to spell certain doom for the EV.

“According to a poll released in May 1994 by the American Automobile Manufacturers Association,” writes Joseph Weiss in his book Business Ethics: A Stockholder and Issues Management Approach, “there was 60 percent support for the [EV] mandate, and nearly 30 percent of those polled were interested in buying an electric car if it were on sale for $20,000 to $30,000.” Yet, GM stands by the company line that says EV1 was discontinued simply because of lack of demand. 

Aker Wade and the City of Charlottesville can thank Tom Perriello for a Department of Energy grant totaling $500,000 to develop two electric vehicle fast-charge battery stations in town.

“I know the guys who worked on the EV1,” counters John Aker, “and they claim it was Rick Wagoner, the CEO at the time, who made the call to kill the EV1. Remember, GM was selling literally thousands of SUVs per day then, and the decision was made to get the EVs out of the way. They could have kept them and used them for municipal purposes until technology progressed, and then they would have been at the forefront. Instead they have to play catch up now.” 

And yet, “this time around, electric cars may even play in Peoria” writes Karen Lange in National Geographic. She also claims that between 2010 and 2012, the auto industry has plans to introduce dozens of new vehicles, both hybrid and fully rechargable EVs.  

Of course, Central Virginia has never played a traditional role in automotive development. And that’s what makes Aker Wade and other like-minded companies outside of Detroit so exciting.

Earlier this year, Central Virginian Oliver Kuttner was awarded $5 million by Progressive for his Very Light Car (a.k.a. Edison2), which debuted at Detroit’s big auto show in January. While still run on gasoline, Edison2 was able to record an unbelievable 100 miles to the gallon. 

In July, the DOE funded a propane Autogas vehicle conversion program that boasted the first of 1,189 emission-cutting cars. Administered by Virginia Clean Cities at James Madison University, the program is set to deploy vehicles that will drastically reduce air pollutants such as carbon monoxide, soot and smog-causing emissions when compared to traditional gasoline vehicles.

More recently, UVA held a two-day symposium and exhibit where experts in engineering, sustainability and auto marketing discussed the future of fuel-efficient cars, and in particular, hybrids.

The Aker brothers, who are self-ascribed “Army Brats,” came to Charlottesville with their parents in 1972. John graduated from Virginia Tech and Bret from UVA. While optimistic about the future of EVs, they are more conservative in their estimation of when we might start seeing these charging stations along freeways. “Five years,” says John Aker. “Governments around the world are waking up to fast charge technology, but it’s been much slower in America.” 

In fact, Aker Wade’s EV fast chargers are currently used by Better Place in Japan and Israel. Additionally, Aker Wade has also supplied EV fast chargers for Chrysler’s ENVI line of electric and hybrid vehicles. That company has proposed a parking lot installation of Aker Wade fast chargers for their employees.

And yet, the ever-present critique known as “range anxiety”—the fear that EVs will leave drivers stranded on the road with a depleted battery—still persists in the minds of many potential consumers. So in early 2010, Coulomb Technologies and Aker Wade announced plans for the development of charging stations enabling drivers to charge their cars in 30 minutes. This announcement helped Aker Wade forge a serious relationship with the auto industry in Tokyo, Detroit and Europe. As such, Aker Wade now has chargers capable of energizing the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi iMiEV in around a half-hour, as well. 

“The question remains: When will you buy an electric car?” says Bret Aker. “When will your mom buy an electric car? Answer: When you know you can get from here to Richmond without being stranded. That’s where these fast charge stations come in. When you can stop in Culpepper and get another 50 miles of range in 10 minutes on the way to D.C., that’s when it will reach its peak market. We’re just at the beginning right now.”

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has already proven the benefit of having fast chargers in Tokyo from 2006-2009. As an example of the technology’s power over the nonbeliever, according to TEPCO, when it allowed employees to drive Mitsubishi iMiEV electric cars, usage at first was low due to fear of running out of power. After deploying several fast chargers around Tokyo, vehicle usage went up 50 percent. Today, there are more than 150 fast chargers in Japan, with plans for another 1,000 to go in the ground in 2011.

“EV is going to be one of those tempering technologies,” John Aker predicts. “As gas shoots up, people will buy more EVs and that’ll keep gasoline from going crazy, right? And it’ll be see-sawing back and forth. You’re going to see a mix of vehicles on the road over the next 20 years. But, eventually, by the middle of this century, you’ll be seeing primarily electric vehicles out there. You’ll have the ranges up. You’re going to have 400 to 500 miles per vehicle and you’ll be able to re-charge within 10-15 minutes, just like you do with gasoline now. The next step after that is to make sure the electricity is coming from renewable resources.”

At the Project Get Ready Technical Adviser meeting on May 13 of this year, the Society of Automotive Engineers claimed they were prepared to evaluate new charging standards for the U.S. market. In states like Arizona and Oregon, state legislators have begun creating statutes for EV parking enforcement and are looking to fund new signage for guiding EV drivers to fast charge stations. Signage examples like this presently exist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while in Amsterdam, diesel vehicles parked in EV spaces are already being towed.

“It boils down to the price of gasoline,” concludes John Aker as we walk back through the front office. “In Europe, it’s almost $9 a gallon. China is now buying more cars per year than the United States, which means there’s going to be considerable competition for the limited resources in fuel. With EVs, it’ll be much less: a fraction of the costs. We’re in the infancy stages right now, but what will continue to drive this is simple supply and demand, and we think the future is now.”